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Quadruplane
In aviation, a multiplane is a fixed-wing aircraft-configuration featuring multiple wing planes. The wing planes may be stacked one above another, or one behind another, or both in combination. Types having a small number of planes have specific names and are not usually described as multiplanes: * Biplane - two wings stacked one above the other * Triplane - three wings stacked one above another * Tandem wing - two main planes, one behind the other. The tandem triple or tandem triplet configuration has three lifting surfaces one behind another. While triplane, quadruplane and tandem designs are relatively uncommon, aircraft with more than four sets of wings rarely occur - none have proven successful. Quadruplanes The quadruplane configuration takes the triplane approach a step further, using efficient wings of high aspect ratio and stacking them to allow a compact and light weight design. During the pioneer years of aviation and World War I, a few designers sought these potential ...
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Wight Quadruplane
The Wight Quadruplane, also referred to as the Wight Type 4, was a British single seat quadruplane fighter aircraft built by J Samuel White & Company Limited (Wight Aircraft) during World War I. Testing revealed design deficiencies and after the only example was involved in a crash, further work on the aircraft was abandoned. Design and development The Quadruplane serial no N546 was a prototype designed by Wight Aircraft general manager and design chief Howard T. Wright in 1916. Inspired by the Sopwith Triplane and other multi-wing aircraft of its time, it had an unusual arrangement in which the fuselage was placed between the middle two wings with upper and lower wings attached by struts. Another remarkable feature was that its wingspan was less than the overall length. The wings were cambered on the leading and trailing edges with a flat middle section. This wing design proved to be very inefficient. Power was provided by a Clerget 9Z nine-cylinder air cooled rotary ...
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Supermarine
Supermarine was a British aircraft manufacturer that is most famous for producing the Spitfire fighter plane during World War II as well as a range of seaplanes and flying boats, and a series of jet-powered fighter aircraft after World War II. The company had successes in the Schneider Trophy for seaplanes, with three wins in a row of 1927, 1929 and 1931. The company was founded in 1913 as Pemberton-Billing Ltd on the River Itchen close to Woolston, Southampton, on ground previously purchased by Noel Pemberton Billing to construct motor launches. It produced a couple of prototypes using quadruplane designs to shoot down zeppelins, the Supermarine P.B.29 and the Supermarine Nighthawk. The aircraft were fitted with the recoilless Davis gun and the Nighthawk had a separate powerplant to power a searchlight.The World's Worst Aircraft James Gilbert Upon election as a Member of Parliament (MP) in 1916, Pemberton-Billing sold the company to his factory manager and longtime assoc ...
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Matthew Bacon Sellers II
Matthew Bacon Sellers II (March 29, 1869 – April 5, 1932) was a United States inventor and scientist known for his work in the field of aviation. Biography He was born on March 29, 1869, in Baltimore, Maryland to Matthew Bacon Sellers I. In 1915 he joined the Naval Consulting Board. He died on April 5, 1932 in Ardsley-on-Hudson, New York Irvington, sometimes known as Irvington-on-Hudson,Staff (ndg"The Irvington Gazette (Irvington-On-Hudson, N.Y.) 1907-1969"Library of Congress is a suburban village in the town of Greenburgh in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is loc .... Sellers quadruplane Sellers was interested in low-powered flight. He constructed a staggered quadruplane capable of flight on only 5 hp. He flew it at least from 1909 to 1912 and published his researches.Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1913, facsimile Reprint, David & Charles, 1969. References {{DEFAULTSORT:Sellers, Matthew Bacon Aviation inventors 1869 births 1932 deaths Nava ...
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Triplane
A triplane is a fixed-wing aircraft equipped with three vertically stacked wing planes. Tailplanes and canard foreplanes are not normally included in this count, although they occasionally are. Design principles The triplane arrangement may be compared with the biplane in a number of ways. A triplane arrangement has a narrower wing chord than a biplane of similar span and area. This gives each wing-plane a slender appearance with higher aspect ratio, making it more efficient and giving increased lift. This potentially offers a faster rate of climb and tighter turning radius, both of which are important in a fighter. The Sopwith Triplane was a successful example, having the same wing span as the equivalent biplane, the Sopwith Pup. Alternatively, a triplane has reduced span compared to a biplane of given wing area and aspect ratio, leading to a more compact and lightweight structure. This potentially offers better maneuverability for a fighter, and higher load-capacity with ...
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Fixed-wing Aircraft
A fixed-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air Aircraft, flying machine, such as an airplane, which is capable of flight using wings that generate Lift (force), lift caused by the aircraft's forward airspeed and the wing configuration, shape of the wings. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from rotorcraft, rotary-wing aircraft (in which the wings form a Helicopter rotor, rotor mounted on a spinning shaft or "mast"), and ornithopters (in which the wings bird flight#Flapping flight, flap in a manner similar to that of a bird). The wings of a fixed-wing aircraft are not necessarily rigid; kites, hang gliders, variable-sweep wing aircraft and airplanes that use wing morphing are all examples of fixed-wing aircraft. Gliding flight, Gliding fixed-wing aircraft, including free-flying Glider (aircraft), gliders of various kinds and tethered kites, can use moving air to gain altitude. Powered aircraft, Powered fixed-wing aircraft (airplanes) that gain forward thrust from an aircraft engine, ...
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Besson H-5
__NOTOC__ The Besson H-5 (or sometimes Besson MB-11) was a French transport quadruplane flying boat designed by the Marcel Besson company of Boulogne. The only H-5 was damaged and development was abandoned. Development The HB.5 (MB-10) originally started development as an open-sea reconnaissance/bombing flying-boat, but it was completed as a 20-seat passenger transport flying-boat. Described as grotesque it had two sets of staggered biplane wings with an unusual X-type bracing and a biplane tail with triple fins and rudders. Powered by four Salmson 9Z radial engines that were located in tandem pairs in line with the third mainplane. The H-5 had a conventional fuselage on a three-ply mahogany boat hull, which had 24 watertight compartments. The H-5 was tested from the St Raphael naval air station in 1922 and proved to be stable with little vibration. After a few test flights the H-5 was accidentally damaged and development was abandoned. Specifications See also References ...
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AEA Cygnet II
The Cygnet (or Aerodrome #5) was an extremely unorthodox early Canadian aircraft, with a wall-like "wing" made up of 3,393 tetrahedral cells. It was a powered version of the Cygnet tetrahedral kite designed by Dr Alexander Graham Bell in 1907 and built by the newly founded Aerial Experiment Association. Design and development Bell's experiments with tetrahedral kites had explored the advantages of utilizing great banks of cells to create a lifting body leading to the Cygnet I. On 6 December 1907, Thomas Selfridge piloted the kite as it was towed into the air behind a motorboat, eventually reaching a height of 168 ft (51 m). This was the first recorded heavier-than-air flight in Canada. While demonstrably able to fly as a person-carrying kite, it seemed unpromising as a direction for research into powered flight. It was difficult to control, and was in fact destroyed when it hit the water at the end of the flight. The following year, a smaller copy of the design was built as t ...
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Sesquiplane
A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While a biplane wing structure has a structural advantage over a monoplane, it produces more drag than a monoplane wing. Improved structural techniques, better materials and higher speeds made the biplane configuration obsolete for most purposes by the late 1930s. Biplanes offer several advantages over conventional cantilever monoplane designs: they permit lighter wing structures, low wing loading and smaller span for a given wing area. However, interference between the airflow over each wing increases drag substantially, and biplanes generally need extensive bracing, which causes additional drag. Biplanes are distinguished from tandem wing arrangements, where the wings are placed forward and aft, instead of above and below. The term is also ...
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Horatio Phillips
Horatio Frederick Phillips (1845 – 1924) was an English aviation pioneer, born in Streatham, Surrey. He was famous for building multiplane flying machines with many more sets of lifting surfaces than are normal on modern aircraft. However he made a more lasting contribution to aeronautics in his work on aerofoil design.Wragg, D.W.; ''Flight before flying'', Osprey, 1974 Aerofoils Phillips devised a wind tunnel in which he studied a wide variety of aerofoil shapes for use in providing lift. The tunnel was unusual in that the gas flow was provided by steam rather than air. By 1884 he was able to register his first patent, and more were to follow. He demonstrated the truth of George Cayley's idea that giving the upper surface greater curvature than the lower accelerates the upper airflow, reducing pressure above the wing and so creating lift. Multiplane flying machines Phillips believed that multiple stacked wing planes (or "sustainers" as he called them), in "Venetian bli ...
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Hiram Maxim
Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim (5 February 1840 – 24 November 1916) was an American- British inventor best known as the creator of the first automatic machine gun, the Maxim gun. Maxim held patents on numerous mechanical devices such as hair-curling irons, a mousetrap, and steam pumps. Maxim laid claim to inventing the lightbulb. Maxim experimented with powered flight; his large aircraft designs were never successful. He designed a highly successful amusement ride called the "Captive Flying Machine" to fund his research while generating public interest in flight. Maxim moved from the United States to the United Kingdom at the age of 41, and remained an American citizen until he became a naturalised British subject in 1899, and received a knighthood in 1901. Birth and early life Maxim was born in Sangerville, Maine on 5 February 1840. He became an apprentice coachbuilder at the age of 14 and ten years later, took up a job at the machine works of his uncle, Levi Stephens, a ...
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